


desk jobs aren't for everyone

by steelplatedhearts



Series: War Paint and Cyanide Pills [5]
Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelplatedhearts/pseuds/steelplatedhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Q gets a new secretary that could probably kill him and Bond is a hot commodity in the supervillain world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	desk jobs aren't for everyone

“A _secretary_ ,” Q says flatly, raising an incredulous eyebrow at Eve.

“More like a personal assistant,” she says, smirking. “Someone to make sure you sleep and eat and don’t accidentally blow up the entire department when testing new equipment.”

“So a babysitter, essentially,” he says, frowning. “I don’t need a babysitter, Eve.”

“It’s not my decision, it’s Mallory’s,” she says. “But yeah, you do need someone to look out for you. When was the last time you went home?”

“Um, yesterday?” he says, going back to his code. “What day is it, Tuesday?”

“It’s Thursday, Q,” Eve says, in that exasperated voice she generally reserves for Bond.

“Well, what does it matter if I go home?” he asks, waving a hand dismissively. “There’s a cot in the back, I’ve got spare clothes and some snacks stored away.”

“That would make me feel better if I thought for a second that you actually _used them_ ,” Eve says. “I’ll make sure you get someone good, okay?”

“You’d better,” Q says. “I can do nasty things to your computer.”

Eve’s phone beeps, and she turns away to answer it. “Yes? ...Yes, sir. On my way.” She hangs up and heads for the door. “Silva’s been captured.”

“I thought he was dead,” Q says.

“Apparently not,” she calls over her shoulder.

*   *   *   *   *

His new secretary arrives within the week, and she constantly looks like she wants to hurt someone.

Q thinks that’s probably how she got the job. Almost everyone at MI6 looks like they want to hurt people after a while—Bond’s probably looked like that since birth, and it only took about a week and a half for Mallory to start looking mildly murderous at all times.

“Is this the nerd-herder?” Bond asks as she cleans the assorted papers and gadgets off of his desk. She flips him the v without even looking up.

“Don’t you have some enemy combatant to kill?” Q says, annoyed. He doesn’t have time to deal with Bond—he has a secretary that’s organizing all his stuff. He wants to snatch everything out of her hands and shout _there’s a system!_ , but he promised Eve that he’d at least try to cooperate.

“Nah,” Bond says. “They want me around to deal with Silva.”

“They’re wondering how you managed to not kill him, I suspect,” Q says, and Bond has the decency to look mildly embarrassed.

“You’ll have to come with me for the interrogation,” he says. “They want us to follow up on how he hacked into all our systems, and I need a tech-to-English translator.”

“I can do that.”

“We’ll have to fly.”

Q groans. “The things I do for you people.”

*   *   *   *   *

Despite being behind about five layers of security and wearing those stupid velcroed tennis shoes, Silva is terrifying, specifically because he doesn’t act terrifying at all. He’s oddly charming, smiling at them and being very polite.

Q is convinced that this is part of some master plan.

“I assume you’re here to pick my brain?” he says, smiling at Q. “I can’t tell you everything, you know. After all, a man has to have _some_ secrets, _darling_.”

Q barely has time to wonder about the odd emphasis on the word ‘darling’ before he hears a small snap and turns to see his secretary stalking off, pieces of broken pencil lying on the floor.

Bond sort of rolls is eyes in the direction of the hallway, and Q interprets this as “Go make sure she doesn’t wander off somewhere she’s not supposed to go,” so he excuses himself and hurries after her.

He finds her one hallway over, leaning against the wall, curling in on herself. Comfort is not his strong point, but he’ll give it a go.

“Ah, Miss Dreyfus, are—are you all right?” he asks, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “He can’t hurt you.”

She gives him her best “you’re a complete idiot” look, and he decides to revisit his theory that being hired at MI6 has a lot more to do with insulting and/or murderous facial expressions than anything else. “I wiped drool off your face on the plane,” she says. “I think you can just call me Shosanna.”

“Shosanna. Right,” Q says. “Well, are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, pressing her lips into a thin line. “No need to worry.”

They go back to the small room where Silva’s being held and Q and Bond carry on with the interrogation. Miss Dreyfus—Shosanna—is quiet the whole time, no more running out, but she keeps breaking pencils when Silva calls him or Bond “darling.”

He calls Bond a “dear little rat” at one point, and she makes a little choking sound. Q makes a note to not take her along when they visit maniacs next time, even if she’s willing to babysit him on planes.

Some people can’t handle proximity to evil. Shosanna must be one of them.

*   *   *   *   *

“I don’t think your little nanny likes me very much,” Bond says, firing one of Q’s new weapons straight into the heart of some paper enemy.

Q jots down some notes. “It’s probably because you keep calling her “nanny.” That’s not exactly going to endear her to you.”

“She’s taking her marksmanship test today,” Bond says. “I want to go down and watch.”

Q pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Why?”

“I figured I’d help her out with it,” Bond says, shrugging. “I know that shooting isn’t a strong point for most of the people with the desk jobs, so I offered my expertise.”

“She turned you down, didn’t she?” Q asks, lips twitching up into a small smile.

“Laughed in my face,” Bond says, rather petulantly.

“And you want to go salve your manly pride by seeing if she’s terrible,” Q concludes.

“ _No._ ”

Q just raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, okay. Shut it,” Bond growls.

Shosanna is a nice girl, and she’s new, so when Bond heads down to the testing range, Q goes along with him, if only to act as a buffer between Shosanna and Bond’s scorn.

He needn’t have worried. When she sees Bond, she gives him the most scornful look he’s ever seen on a human being, behind only M and possibly Eve.

The evaluator gets her set up, and when it’s time for her to shoot, she narrows her eyes at Bond one more time, and then unloads the entire clip directly into the target, splitting them evenly between the head and the heart.

She smirks at Bond as she walks away.

“You’re right,” Q says finally. “She _really_ doesn’t like you.”

*   *   *   *   *

Shosanna makes sure he eats three meals a day, and even though they’re not always the most nutritious, at least he’s getting fed. She’s developed the ability to glare at him until he slinks to the cot in the back for a short nap, and when she thinks he’s been there too long, she’ll physically remove him from the building and drive him home.

“I told you it would work out,” Eve says when they’re waiting in line at some coffee shop (Shosanna had unceremoniously ejected him from the building and told him to “go take a walk or something, you look like a plant that’s never seen the sun.” Eve had been nice enough to take her break early and accompany him). “You’re seeming much more rested.”

“She keeps rearranging my _things_ , Eve,” Q says. “It’s a disaster, I can never find any of my files.”

“So just ask her where it is,” Eve says, paying for her latte. “I mean, that’s what she’s there for.”

“But what if she _quits_? What if she _dies_? I’ll be lost in a sea of bizarre filing systems!” Q says, wrinkling his nose.

“I’ve seen that filing system, and it’s perfectly normal,” Eve says. “Anyone in the building should be able to help you if you need. But I don’t think Shosanna’s going anywhere. She seems to like it here.”

*   *   *   *   *

Shosanna does not like MI6.

Everything is clean and sanitized, scrubbed too white and pristine. Sometimes she thinks she wants to slit someone’s throat and watch the blood stain all the white spaces.

But she has her stupid _salaud_ to think of, so she refrains. Barely.

There are a few close calls, and almost all of them involve Bond. He’s cocky and infuriating, and she doesn’t see what Silva finds appealing about him at all.

She sleeps with him once, and is not impressed.

(Well, she might be a little impressed. But Silva is never going to know that.)

He’s charming and kills for a living, yes, but he’s _dull._ If Silva tried to burn the world down with _him_ , he’d probably complain the whole time, blather on about regulations and morals or whatever.

He’s probably never even beaten a man to death with a baseball bat. It would wreck his suit.

So. She’ll watch, and wait, and let Silva out the first chance she gets, and then she can tell him exactly what Bond’s like and then maybe he’ll shut up about him for once.

*   *   *   *   *

Bond and Eve are having lunch when the alarm sounds. Bond doesn’t even pause, just bolts out of his chair and runs.

“Remind me why they moved Silva back here?” he growls at Eve, who’s easily keeping pace with him despite her heels.

“Beats me,” she says. “Something about more security?”

“Well that turned out _great_ ,” he says.

They round the corner and nearly collide with Q, who looks panicked. “Shosanna’s missing—I can’t find her anywhere.”

“She’s probably on lunch break or something,” Eve says. “We kind of have bigger things to worry about.”

“I think the fact that she’s _missing_ when there’s probably a sociopath on the loose is a pretty big thing to worry about.”

“ _Who bloody cares_?” Bond yells, already halfway down the hallway. _“FOCUS!”_

They go down and down, further into the building until they reach Silva’s cell. Bond gets there first, and stops short, causing Eve and Q to slam into him.

Not only is Silva still there, Shosanna is standing over him, waving a baseball bat threateningly.

“And _furthermore_ ,” she shouts, smacking him in the ribs, “Bond isn’t even that _interesting,_ okay? I don’t know what you see in him at all, he’s _dull_.”

“I’m dull?” Bond says, raising an eyebrow.

At his voice, both Silva and Shosanna whirl around, pointing guns at the three people in the doorway. Q’s hands go up immediately, followed more hesitantly by Eve and Bond’s.

“Yes, you’re dull,” Shosanna snaps.

“I don’t know, _ratita_ ,” Silva says. “You haven’t read his psychology reports.”

“Whatever those reports said, he’s perfectly ordinary _now_ ,” she says. “And he’s not even that good of a fuck, either. So you can stop _talking about him all the time_.”

There’s a stunned silence, and then Silva finally says, “You slept with Bond?”

“Yes,” Shosanna says. “Something you never managed, I might add.”

“Okay,” Q says slowly. “Let me see if I have this straight. You,” he says, pointing at Shosanna, “are evil.”

“I don’t know about _evil_ ,” Silva says.

“So that’s a yes. And you work with _him_ ,” Q says, pointing at Silva.

“That’s right.”

“So, what—you slept with Bond to make him jealous or something?”

“No,” Shosanna growls. “I did it so this one would stop talking about him all the time!”

Q raises an eyebrow. “So you’re jealous.”

“Oh, he’s just adorable,” Silva says, charmed. “And he’s almost as good as me with a computer—can we keep him, ratita?”

“Keep Q? _God_ , no,” Shosanna says, disgusted. “I’ve been in charge of him for god knows how long, and he’s hopeless. He forgets to eat, Raoul. You can keep him if you want. I’ll just keep Bond, then.”

“I thought you didn’t like Bond,” Silva says, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I don’t want _you_ to have him,” she retorts. “And you said you wanted to keep Q, so.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Also, I don’t particularly want to be kept,” Q says, but they ignore him.

Bond just looks bored. “Nobody’s keeping anybody, Q. Quit worrying.”

“I’d just like to point out that I’m the only one here who the psychopaths don’t want to adopt,” Eve says with a smirk. “I think that makes me the best person, morally.”

“Okay, I think we’re done here. We’re not keeping anyone,” Shosanna snarls. She grabs Silva’s hand, dragging him up while keeping the gun pointed at the others. “Goodbye, don’t stay in touch.”

The second there aren’t guns pointed at their heads, Bond sprints into action, but it’s too late. Silva and Shosanna are gone, and they’ve left a truly impressive body count in their wake.

*   *   *   *   *

Q is jolted awake a week later by “Don’t Fear the Reaper” coming from his phone. He groans, flipping it open.

“What do you want, Bond?” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. “Something had better be on fire.”

There’s silence from the other end of the line, and Q sits up. “Bond, what’s wrong?”

“…Silva showed up,” Bond says finally. Q scrambles up, knocking Eve off the couch.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Fine, fine,” Bond says, a little absently.

“What did he want?”

“Um. I’m still not sure.”

“Wait—Bond, is he still _there?”_ Q says, incredulous.

The silence from the other end of the line says volumes. “What’s going on?” Eve asks, yanking on the sleeve of his cardigan.

“Silva’s at Bond’s flat,” he tells her. “Bond, why the hell is he still there?”

“Well, he’s still asleep,” Bond says.

Q rolls his eyes. Getting anything out of Bond is like pulling teeth in the best of circumstances. “And _why, exactly_ , is a megalomaniac sleeping in your flat?”

“…I may have slept with him,” Bond admits, and Q feels like he’s a lot more surprised at this than he should be.  
“You _slept with Silva_?” he repeats, mostly for Eve’s benefit. She looks like she isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry, and settles on some sort of appalled fascination.

“You know, I’m as surprised as you are,” Bond says, sounding far too calmly bemused.

“Tell him that I say he’s an idiot,” Eve says.

“Eve says you’re an idiot.”

“Oh. Hello, Eve,” Bond says. “Why is Eve there?”

“We were watching Downton Abbey,” Q says, “and that’s not the _point._ How did this happen?”

“Do you want a lesson in mechanics?” Bond asks dryly. “Look, I don’t know,” he says over Q’s spluttering, “he just showed up, all right? I just don’t know what to do with him now.”

“Well, I don’t know, maybe _arrest him?_ ” Q says, running his fingers through his hair. “This is why I’ve been lobbying to replace you 00’s with robots, I swear to god—”

There’s a loud thump at the other end of the line, and then a woman starts shrieking. “What’s happening?” Q says, switching to speakerphone.

“Shosanna just showed up,” Bond says, voice thick. “She punched me in the nose—oh _hell_ —hang on—”

There’s gunfire, and then Q can hear Silva and Shosanna shouting. “She’s got a gun,” Bond says, a tad unnecessarily.

“Yes, _thank you_ ,” Q says.

“Are you jealous, _ratita_?” they hear in the background, and then a loud crash.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” Q says.

“Would _you_ want to get in the middle of their domestics?”

Q thinks about it, then shudders. _“No.”_

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bond says, and a loud beeping is added to the din. “She’s set my bloody flat on fire. This is ridiculous—Oi! Take the missus elsewhere, please—”

Another loud thump. “He threw a _knife at my head,_ ” Bond says, outraged.

“I don’t quite know what you expected, Bond,” Eve says, raising an eyebrow. “He did _blow up MI6._ ”

“Oh, wait—they’re gone,” Bond says. “She kicked him out—literally, _kicked him_ , I don’t understand them at all. Hang on, I have to stop my apartment from being on fire.”

He presumably rushes off, and Q and Eve exchange glances. “I really don’t want to have to be the one to fill out the paperwork on this,” he says finally.

“I don’t think paperwork for “got fucked by an evil maniac who wanted to piss off his evil maniac girlfriend” actually _exists_ ,” Eve says, thinking about it. “I’m sure there’s some sort of “fraternization with the enemy” form we could adapt.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of “let’s pretend this never happened,” actually,” Q says. “Maybe if we ignore them, they’ll go away.”

“Bond’s slept with them both,” Eve says. “It’s like feeding stray cats, they’ll never leave now.”

“I’m sure they’ll get bored of bothering us eventually,” Q says, but he doesn’t sound convincing, even to himself.

*   *   *   *   *

“All right, how are we going to deal with this?” Mallory asks. Q thinks he’s being very calm, considering that over the last month and a half they’ve arrested Shosanna and Silva three times, lost them all three times with an absurdly high death toll, and had seven break-ins for the sole purpose of one of them making out with Bond (and on two memorable occasions, Q, and on one even more memorable occasion, Eve).

“I’ll get them, sir. Don’t worry,” Bond says.

“Well, I’m worried,” Mallory says. “I’m sure I don’t need to go over what they’ve already done.”

“No sir,” Bond says, grimacing slightly.

“I think I have a plan,” Q says. “It’s, ah, _slightly_ unorthodox.”

“Of course it is,” Bond grumbles.

“I’ve been gathering data,” Q says, shuffling with his notes, “and the death toll goes down during break-ins. They’re not here to kill anyone, they’re just fucking with each other, pardon my French. When we bring them in, the body count goes way up. When one of them is hurt, it goes even higher.”

“What are you suggesting, Q?” Mallory asks, losing patience.

“That we leave them alone,” Q says. “Don’t try to capture them, don’t shoot at them when they show up to snog Bond—”

“So I’m snog-bait now, is that it?” Bond asks, raising an eyebrow.

“If you don’t mind,” Q says.

“I don’t mind, they’re good snoggers,” Bond says. “Just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”

“So, we let them be for now,” Q says. “If they’re causing trouble that we have to deal with, then by all means deal with it, but on the whole we should just let it go. Besides,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “if we ever need something not-strictly-legal done, I’m sure Bond could talk them into doing it.”

“That’s probably the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” Mallory says, after a moment.

“Yeah,” Q says, shoulders slumping. “I knew it was a long shot—”

“It’ll go into effect immediately,” Mallory says. “Miss Moneypenny, please take notes.”

*   *   *   *   *


End file.
